


Forever is Our Today

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Affection, Alcohol, Angst, Consensual Sex, Enemies to Friends, Far Future, Immortality, Immortals in Space, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Light Angst, Loneliness, M/M, Memories, Sexual Content, Survivor Guilt, last ones alive, magical alien swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 12:26:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10020728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: A couple of hundred years after the war on Chorus ended, the two who cannot die turn up for their customary twice a decade drinks.Eternity is a long time to spend with someone who was once an enemy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> While character death is implied (I mean, it's been a couple of hundred years), there's no more detail than just a mention that people eventually died. Nothing graphic.

The last bar had closed down about a decade ago, but a new one had opened on the same street, on the same small, out of the way planet where they'd first encountered each other. Chorus has changed a lot in the couple of hundred years since the civil war. Iona, the second city which had been a mostly abandoned ghost town, is now a thriving capital, full of skyscrapers and some of the most advanced Human-Sangheili research facilities in the galaxy. 

It still gives Tucker a jolt every time he sees it. 

The bar is tucked away on a side street in the oldest part of the city. It's an area that's been preserved as it had been during the war, and is, much to his amusement, called Hero's Quarter. Every time he visits, once every five years or so, he asks about the name and god, he's heard some bullshit. It's supposedly the area where the last stand took place. Oh no, it's the area where both the Feds and New Republic signed their peace treaty. It's the area where the the Chorus Republic was founded. All manner of stuff.

Truth be told, Tucker had never actually visited the area until about a decade after the war for a commemoration ceremony, and mostly they'd been using an old military base ten miles away to do all that stuff. People just love stories. 

Tucker loves them too. There’s something fascinating about hearing about yourself and your friends from someone who wasn’t even born until over a century after you ‘died’, and whose knowledge had been filtered through history books and research documents and that one movie with the completely made up love interest (some cute generic blond chick) and the actor playing him with a complete lack of fantastic abs. (The less said about the Earth-made film where Tucker had been played by Generic White Dude #23 the better. He’d been so mad! There had been complaint letters written and that was how he knew he’d got old.)

The bar is popular with locals, but a bit too small and old fashioned to be a hot spot. Most of the off-world researchers don’t even know it exists, but it gets a fair few students in search of a quieter night than the nightclubs in the centre of the city. There’s no vid-screens and the music is soft and unobtrusive. It’s definitely a place to drink more than anything else.

Tucker looks around, squinting in the dim light until he spots him. He’s picked out a booth in the furthest, darkest corner of the bar, because some things never change, no matter how long you live, and one of those things is Samuel Ortez, aka Locus, aka god knows what right now, being a paranoid drama queen.

Tucker heads over to the bar first and orders himself a beer, then slopes over to the booth and slides into the seat opposite Sam. He’s wearing civvies, like Tucker is, but he’s a bit more put together with a shirt and tie and black slacks, where Tucker has just gone for jeans and a t-shirt and a belt that lets him hide the sword at the small of his back. Sam has his on him somewhere too, Tucker would bet on it. It can be tricky hiding the swords now that armour isn’t a thing (it’s all energy fields and implant bullshit these days) and Tucker had ditched the armour once all of the ‘thanks for your service’ had changed to ‘oh hey, are you doing historical re-enactment?’ Ugh.

“You’re late,” Sam says, giving him a cool, steady look.

Tucker rolls his eyes. “Oh right, sorry about that. Why, in that half hour, you could have died of old age.”

Sam gives him a look. Sure, it might have terrified people when he was wearing his armour, but Tucker has been the recipient of those looks for several centuries now. He’s absolutely immune. He smirks and sips at his beer instead.

“What’ve you been up to?” Tucker asks finally. It’s been five years. Five years already, and Tucker can’t remember what he did with the time. He wonders sometimes if this is how things will continue; watching people with their mayfly lives, losing hours, days, weeks to apathy, until a century feels like a day.

“Travelling,” Sam says, and he’d leave it at that if Tucker didn’t clear his throat expectantly. “I took a few jobs. Bounties.”

Tucker grimaces but Sam just gives him that steady, unflinching look again. He’d slipped into that sort of job like putting on an old, well-worn glove. And he was good at it, Tucker knew that. He’d hunted down the remnants of the forces working for Hargrove with brutal efficiency. And it wasn’t as though Tucker had settled down to live in the suburbs for the past centuries. Not since- 

Yeah, that still hurts, the loss of his friends, his family, a dull ache in his chest. He swallows it down and hides his discomfort behind his beer. He’s pretty sure that Sam sees through it, but he doesn’t say anything. Tucker appreciates it. 

“You?” Sam asks instead.

“I dunno. Delivered a few shipments. Had a tropical holiday.” 

“You’re bored.” Sam says it blandly. It isn’t a question, just a statement of fact.  
 Tucker clenches his jaw and turns away. He hates that Sam can read him and for a moment, fiercely misses his helmet, no matter how nice it had been to not have to wear it after the war. It’s true though. He can’t deny that. Escorting shipments is the work of a glorified delivery boy, and even tropical islands and cocktails served in hollowed-out pineapples lose their appeal when there’s no-one to share it with. 

And there hasn’t been anyone to share it with for a long time. One night stands are fine, but anything longer… what’s the point when you’re gonna outlive them? He can’t go through that again.

“You sticking around for the centenary?” he asks, voice tight and aggressive in lieu of responding.

Sam frowns, brows drawing together and making the distinctive scar on his face crease. It’s faded since the first time Tucker saw his face. Maybe in another century it’ll be gone altogether. He sort of wonders why he hasn’t had it removed; there’s some amazing treatments out there, but he still has that ugly spreading scar along his stomach where Felix had stabbed him. He can’t quite bring himself to erase the evidence, the proof that it was real, it happened. They’d mattered.

“It isn’t my place,” Sam says. “I was the enemy.”

“And none of the people here will have a fucking clue. They’ll just think you’re some tourist. And I heard they throw a hell of a party.” 

“Last time I tried to attend, you protested. Vehemently.” Sam says it in the same calm tone, but there’s an undercurrent to it. Curiosity maybe. Anger. It’s hard to tell. Tucker scrutinises his face for a moment before slumping back in his seat.

“I was pissed off,” he says. “It had been, what, fifty years? And I was-“ Grieving. “I wasn’t in a good headspace and you turned up with that fucking armour and-“

There’s another wound on his ribs, a cauterised mark from where they’d fought. Locus… Sam, could have killed him then, but he hadn’t. Tucker isn’t sure if he resents that or not. He could have died while there were still people around to grieve him.

"That was before,” Tucker says, swallowing around the lump in his throat. 

Before he was alone. Before he watched the others age and get sick and finally die. Before they stopped being heroes and turned into legends that people taught classes about in Chorus History 101.

“I will consider it,” Sam says. Tucker tries not to focus too much on the wash of relief that his acquiescence brings. It’s just… he doesn’t want to be alone.

Tucker rubs his thumb against the condensation on his glass, smearing it clear. Sam is never the most talkative person. Not that Tucker found that surprising, but would it have killed the universe to land him with a companion in immortality who was a bit more chatty? 

“There is a conflict brewing in an outer system,” Sam says eventually, his gaze fixed on his own beer bottle. “I hear they might be hiring mercenaries. I might head there.”

Tucker goes cold, hand tightening on the glass. “Because that went down so fucking well last time,” he says. Why does the surprise trickle like ice-water down his neck? God, why had he hoped for better? 

Sam stiffens, his eyes wide, and he shakes his head vehemently. “No. I- I researched it.” He leans forward, one hand splayed against the ragged table-top. “I have read every scrap of information. I have made contacts. This is different. Towns wanting protection against raiders and bandits. I swear it.”

Tucker narrows his eyes, scrutinising his face. There’s something deeply earnest in Sam’s voice, edged with desperation, a need for Tucker to understand. Maybe, Tucker thinks, he isn’t the only one who needs this, needs that one person who understands. It’s hard though, when the last mercenary job led to the near genocide of a planet. How can someone ever come back from that?

Tucker groans and drags a hand down over his face. “Christ, why couldn’t you have taken up accountancy?”

It breaks the tension and Sam snorts, sitting back in his seat. “I am not sure either of us is cut out for quiet lives,” he says. He twists his fingers around the bottle, and Tucker had never taken him for a fidgeter but here’s the evidence. It’s weird to see him nervous. Sam looks up again, meeting Tucker’s gaze. “You could come with me.”

Tucker stares, actually struck speechless and that is a damn hard thing to do. He’s been known to mouth off while bleeding out. This should not have that much of an effect on him. 

“What?” he manages to stammer after a minute.

Sam looks away. “Never mind,” he says and swigs the last of his beer before standing up. “I should leave.”

“Hey! I didn’t-“ Tucker reaches out to grab his sleeve, stopping him, although if Sam really wanted to leave, he could pull away easily. “Sit the fuck down,” Tucker says. To his surprise, Sam down, shuffling awkwardly back into the booth.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Fuck that,” Tucker replies. “You just surprised me, okay? What did you expect when last time you were a mercenary…” 

“I have been trying,” Sam says. “I _am_ trying. No bounties without evidence of their guilt. No mercenary contracts where I cannot be sure that- that I am doing more good than harm.”

He sounds so solemn, and god, Tucker wants to believe him. Does believe him. He’s kept tabs on him, is the thing, ever since Chorus. He’d been tough to track at first, but Tucker has learned what to look for, and since the man known as Locus should be long dead, he doesn’t need to hide so much. But the point is that he’s seen what Sam has been doing since he vanished at the broadcast tower. He’s seen him work and work hard. Seen him be meticulous when he takes bounties, to make sure that he’s not going after someone innocent. Seen the mystery donations of huge sums of money to various charities, all anonymous, with no expectations of gratitude. He’s pretty sure that Sam is the one who took out a few would-be assassins and people trying to destabilise Chorus’ government, thinking it would be ripe for further exploitation.

And hell, it doesn’t make it _right_. Fuck, Tucker knows it doesn’t. You can’t overwrite genocide. Can’t weigh it up against any number of good deeds and say ‘hey, you’ve made it better. Have a cookie and a commemorative pin’. It doesn’t work that way. Maybe Tucker is just being selfish, wanting to believe that he’s not stuck for eternity with the same asshole merc that they’d fought on Chorus all those years ago. It’s not as though he has anyone else he can talk to about this. He wishes he had Wash’s blunt, unpolished thoughts, or Kimball’s reason, or Carolina to fucking kick his ass and tell him to stop being a moron.

But they’re gone. Long gone. And Sam is the only person who isn’t going to act like he’s fucking crazy if he talks about the war on Chorus like he was there. 

So he lets out a slow breath and nods. “I know, man. It’s all we can fucking do.” 

They lapse into silence. It’s not entire comfortable, but it’s not awful either. Sam goes up to the bar and orders more drinks, while Tucker watches the group of tipsy students who settle at a table nearby. One woman has the same accent as Kimball, and has her arm wrapped around the waist of a pretty red-haired woman and it makes Tucker ache to see, until he has to turn away.

Sam returns and sets down another beer. It’s about fifty-fifty at any of their meets, whether they get absolutely wasted or not. Tonight, apparently, it’s not. Tucker doesn’t mind. “Thanks man.”

“Where will you head after this?” Sam asks.

Tucker shrugs. he’s not really been thinking about it. “I dunno. Travel to some exotic colony. Maybe visit Sangheilios again. They know about me. There are people there.” He was tied in to their mystic bullshit, which had turned out to not be so bullshit.And there’s Junior’s family there. Tucker hasn’t seen them for a while. Kids and grandkids and great-grandkids by now. 

“That sounds like a good plan,” Sam says, with an approving nod. “I may visit the AI at the temple while I am here.”

“You mean Santa?” Tucker says and he bursts into laughter at Sam’s grimace. He thinks that Caboose would enjoy the fact that he’s still causing Locus discomfort so long after the fact.

“Yes,” Sam grinds out.

“Great. I’ll come with you,” Tucker replies easily.

Sam looks surprised. Tucker can see it in the widening of his eyes. But he doesn’t protest, just nods and looks thoughtfully down at his drink.

It’s getting noisier, more people entering to celebrate the upcoming weekend. Tucker swears he hears Grif’s voice, sees a flash of Wash’s hair or Caboose’s laugh. Shit. He rakes a hand through his dreadlocks and wonders if Sam sometimes hears Felix’s voice. Wonders if he wants to.

He leans over and touches Sam’s wrist. Sam startles and gives him a curious look. Tucker jerks a thumb towards the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

Sam looks around and then nods. He pushes himself to his feet and Tucker follows. Their seats are almost immediately taken by another group.

The cool night air hits them as soon as they leave and Tucker pulls his jacket closer around himself. There’s a fancy new tram system, but they wordlessly agree to walk, heading up to the city centre past bars from which thumping bass emanates, and wide shop fronts and pristine office buildings. It’s a far cry from the desolate place that Tucker had first visited. 

They reach Sam’s hotel; a small, slightly dingy place, barely one step up from a motel. Sam stands awkwardly by the door and rubs the bridge of his nose before looking back at Tucker. “Do you want to come in?”

Tucker gapes, staring at him while his brain grinds to a halt for a moment. In all the time they’ve known each other, so many meetings over the years which have gone from outright confrontation, to wary tolerance, to an odd sort of companionship, they’ve still never been in each others space. He has no idea what to do with this change of script. It’s _Locus_ who had caused untold damage, but it’s also Sam, who is the only one left. The only person Tucker has who isn’t going to fucking die on him.

He sucks in a harsh breath, lets it out and then nods. “Yeah. Sure.”

He thinks he sees a small smile on Sam’s face.

Sam’s room matches the outside of the hotel. There’s a bed, a wardrobe, a bedside table and a single chair, none of which match. It’s clean and neat though which is better than some places Tucker’s slept in. He admits he’d half expected some kind of penthouse suite with hot tub and minibar and every conceivable luxury. Something to prove that this was someone who didn’t care, who could wallow in money and luxury and rub it in his face on the planet he’d nearly destroyed. It’s stupid, he realises that, and god knows Tucker has been living things up now that he has money. It still sort of surprises him that Sam chooses to stay here.

There’s a bottle of vodka on the bedside table and Sam picks it up, giving Tucker a questioning glance. He hesitates a moment before nodding. He’s on his way to being comfortably buzzed. Might as well go the rest of the way. 

The vodka goes down warm and smooth, and apparently good alcohol is one thing Sam is willing to spend money on. Where Sam sits on the chair, Tucker perches on the bed, watching while Sam pours himself a glass. As he drinks, he reaches into the drawer and pulls out a data pad. He taps at it and then holds it out to Tucker.

Tucker takes it and looks at what Sam has pulled up. It’s full of maps and reports, endless information about some colony world out further than Tucker has ever been, and their problem with frequent bandit attacks, human and alien. Tucker sighs and then hands it back. “I’m not doing this, Sam,” he says. “I’m not gonna be your Jiminy Cricket.” When Sam gives him a blank look, he elaborates. “Your conscience. I’m not going to be your conscience.”

Sam’s expression closes off and for a moment Tucker thinks he’s done it, he’s fucked everything up and the next thing he sees of Sam is going to be a news report involving war crimes.

But then his shoulders slump and he just looks so tired. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“Then what was your intention?”

“I thought…” Sam begins, before clearing his throat. Tucker can practically see him trying to jigsaw the words together in the right way. When he speaks, every word is deliberate. “It is a job for more than one person. I have some contacts, but none who I would trust to understand my decisions, or to handle the sword if something happens to me. But you… I know that you would know what to do. And that you wouldn’t put money over lives.”

“Christ…” Tucker says, and he can’t quite stop staring. “That’s a lot to take in.”

“Of course,” Sam agrees, a bit too quickly. “I wouldn’t expect you to make a quick decision. There offer is there.”

Tucker nods and then flops back on the bed, staring up at the slightly water damaged ceiling. It isn’t the first job like this he’s taken on. He has skills man, and sometimes he gets itchy and can’t settle into a civilian life. But mostly it’s been accompanying transports, finding shit out, maybe suggesting to gangs very pointedly that they want to leave his neighbourhood and not come back. Not outright mercenary work. And if Sam is right about what he’s dug up, it would probably be doing some good. There’s plenty of outer colony worlds could do with protection from one thing or another.

“I just… lemme think about it.”

“I will.” A second later, Tucker feels the bed dip as Sam settles on it. Tucker turns his head to watch him as he loosens his tie and the first couple of buttons of his shirt, and Tucker is buzzed enough to admit that he finds it kind of hot. Not that he generally needs to be drunk to find things hot.

Sam rests his hand back down on the bed, and it brushes against Tucker’s arm. That’s when it starts. Or maybe it’s just after that, when instead of pulling away, Tucker curls his fingers against Sam’s hand. His skin is very warm, and Tucker just stares for a moment at where his hand rests, his skin a couple of shades darker than Sam’s. He rubs his thumb against the man’s wrist then down to a calloused palm.

It’s definitely started when Sam leans down, slowly, so slowly like he’s the one expecting Tucker to punch him for this, and presses their lips together. It’s awkward; Sam’s lips are tense and Tucker isn’t much better. They’re pieces that were never meant to fit together, but at the same time, Tucker can’t claim to be surprised.

He raises his hands to curl into the front of Sam’s shirt and pulls him closer. Sam gives a shuddering gasp and finally he relaxes and softens, his hands coming to rest on the bed at either side of Tucker’s head.

“Is this okay?” Sam asks when they finally part.

“I’d’ve fucking punched you if it wasn’t,” Tucker replies. It earns him a smile, a genuine one, and another kiss that’s miles better than the first.

They undress quickly, not talking, and Sam keeps shooting him these uncertain little glances. Tucker wonders vaguely how long it’s been for him, if he’s found someone, or had a one-night stand, or if he’s suffering humanity’s longest dry-spell.

Once they’re both naked, he doesn’t do a whole lot more thinking. Sam’s body is solid and strong and a patchwork of scars, some new, some faded to silvery near-invisibility with time. It’s nothing Tucker hasn’t seen before. He’d find it weirder if Sam didn’t have any.

Sam is careful, but there’s something desperate when they fuck. It’s been building between them for a long time, like they’re trying to shed decades of loneliness by drowning in each other here and now. They grip a little too tightly, kiss a little too hard, cling to each other, hot and sweat-slick until they’re finally spent.

They lie there afterwards, pressed together on a too small bed. Tucker has sprawled out on his stomach, face pressed against the pillow, while Sam rests a hand against his back, stroking idly against his skin. It’s sort of soothing, makes it hard to think.

He must drop off for a bit, because when he stirs again, Sam’s hair is damp from the shower and he’s brought water for Tucker. It’s more considerate than he would have expected. He drinks it slowly, stretching out beneath the covers. Sam stands there, awkward, as though Tucker hasn’t already seen him naked. As though they haven’t just had their hands over each other and fucked each other into incoherence.

“You gonna stand there all night?” Tucker asks, grinning at him. “I mean, I’m not gonna object. It’s a nice sight.”

Sam gives a soft snort of laughter but slides back into bed next to Tucker, although he keeps a deliberate space between them.

“That was…” he begins.

“Yeah, it was.” He’s not going down that route. He recognises it too well, the one where they start overanalysing things. That way lies madness and too many memories. 

Sam opens his mouth like he’s going to press it, but after a moment he nods and shifts to get more comfortable on the bed. “You are welcome to stay the night.”

“I’d hope so,” Tucker says. “Not going anywhere until i’ve slept.” It surprises himself, just a bit. Fucking is one thing, but sleeping here, unprotected? It feels more intimate somehow, and more dangerous, but all he can think of is how Sam had clung so tightly to him, had touched him with something akin to reverence. 

Tucker isn’t the only one who’s lonely, and that’s the foundation of it all, isn’t it? That trust that being the only one would be infinitely worse. It’s not the best of foundations, but Tucker’s spent a lot of time making the best of things. 

And now? Now he’s got a hotel room on Chorus for a week and nothing else. He hadn’t bothered to buy a return ticket. Hadn’t planned that far. Has nothing to plan for. It feels like fate. He wouldn’t have believed in that once, but you spend that much time around the Sangheili, and around the Reds and Blues, and you start to wonder. 

Sam’s half asleep by the time Tucker makes his decision. He stirs a little when Tucker elbows him in the side, squinting at him fuzzily and looking the least threatening that Tucker has ever seen him. 

“Hey, Sam,” he says. Sam looks at him with a dazed sort of curiosity. “This colony. The one with the bandits?” He takes a breath, releases it slowly. His stomach lurches. “Send me the information.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Stars Sometimes Fall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10057910) by [AriRashkae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriRashkae/pseuds/AriRashkae)




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